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Menlo Park: committee selects favored election maps

Original post made
on Feb 23, 2018

After hours of discussion in intensive meetings held over the past month or so, Menlo Park's Advisory Districting Committee took a final vote Feb. 22 on two maps intended to fairly split the city into five or six voting districts.

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Posted by Dagwood
a resident of Menlo Park: Downtown
on Feb 23, 2018 at 2:53 pm

really?: West Menlo is 'sliced up' because districts have to be about the same size population, namely 1/5 of the total MP population, for 5 districts. Pieces are taken here and there to give residential areas and businesses both to districts, or to divide along large streets, etc. City council had nothing to do with creating these maps. Only 3 districts will vote in 2018, probably with District 1 (Belle Haven) being one of them. Which other 2 districts vote is up to residents/city council when the council reviews the proposed map(s). So if you can lobby for which districts get to vote which implies which incumbents can run or not.

Posted by Enuff
a resident of Menlo Park: Downtown
on Feb 23, 2018 at 3:18 pm

How about we keep our general election as always, and meet the unconstitutional lawsuit head-on in court--if it even materializes?
Why must our City Council and City Attorney immediately cave whenever anyone uses the word "lawsuit"?
We have a small city as it is. It doesn't make sense to Balkanize it this way.

Posted by Looks Good
a resident of Menlo Park: South of Seminary/Vintage Oaks
on Feb 24, 2018 at 9:24 am

These actually look OK, given the constraints. Michael Hoff seems a little "off" if he was talking about deliberately stacking the deck against the 6-district option, WITH A REPORTER LISTENING, but that's a separate issue. Hi, Michael- you know we can hear you?

Everyone complaining about the situation we're in should take a deep breath and start focusing on finding great candidates for all of the districts. It should be a lively election season!

Posted by SHD Elected Director
a resident of Woodside: Emerald Hills
on Feb 24, 2018 at 1:47 pm

Councilmembers, I hope you can avoid the fiasco that the Sequoia Healthcare District is experiencing in it's switch to Zone elections. See: Web Link
One of the things we learned from the demographer was that minorities are better served by Presidential election cycles. I would advise you to create 3 Districts on the Presidential cycle and 2 on the Gubernatorial cycle.

The following scenario would accomplish that:

District 1. A 2018 election for a 2 year seat would put it on the Presidential cycle.

District 2. (Keith) A 2018 election for a 2 year term would put it on the Presidential cycle.

District 3. Should hold it's first election in 2020, putting it on the Presidential cycle.

District 4.(Cline and Ohtaki) Should have an election in 2018 and remain on the Gubernatorial cycle.

District 5.(Carlton and Mueller) 2020 election for a 2 year term would put it on the Gubernatorial cycle.

Posted by Dagwood
a resident of Menlo Park: Downtown
on Feb 24, 2018 at 4:59 pm

On the above : The CC could decide to have District 1 (Belle Haven) vote in 2020 instead of 2018 to get better voter turnout. This was discussed by the committee. A number of BH residents spoke in favor of 2018. This important choice should be discussed by CC.
Also, on the earlier comment about sticking to our current system - all cities who have tried that to date have not only lost in court, they were stuck with multi-million dollar court costs generated by inflated teams of lawyers and consultants. Itâ€™s pretty bogus (eg heavily criticized by Harvard law profs in the law journals) but thatâ€™s the way it is. The main author of the CA Voting Rights Act (which extends the federal law a lot), making the court fees insurmountable, said himself , when asked if districts are generally desirable, the goal is to attain political power.

Posted by some history
a resident of Menlo Park: other
on Mar 3, 2018 at 12:58 pm

Carpenter writes, "...District 1 will probably be dominated by Facebook employees... and the historical residents East of 101 will remain unrepresented."

Council member Keith's mother attended Belle Haven School when here grandparents lived in Belle Haven in the 50's. Billy Ray White, who moved to Belle Haven in the 60's, and later knocked out two incumbents in 1978 (Ira Bonde and Jenniffer Bigelow) to become the peninsula's first black council member and first black mayor. When Billy Ray White, ran for re-election in 1982, with 8 candidates running, he came in 1st place with a 700 vote spread to Jack Morris who came in 2nd place.

Posted by Seriously?
a resident of Menlo Park: Downtown
on Mar 7, 2018 at 12:19 pm

Let me get this straight.

The City gets sued under the theory a resident of Belle Haven can't get elected city wide. The suit has enough merit, the city is forced to change to district elections. But the politically ambitious geniuses decide that the same night they want to consider going to a city wide election for Mayor, presumably that a person from Belle Haven could never win. How could that possibly be legal?

Posted by legal
a resident of Menlo Park: other
on Mar 7, 2018 at 7:36 pm

As a general law city, Menlo Park can choose to have 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9 districts, with an elected mayor with the even numbers.

The City was sued under the CVRA, not a theory. No defendant has ever successfully prevailed against a CRWA lawsuit because the law was drafted by plaintiff attorneys. There are no politically ambitious geniuses.

Posted by very reasonable
a resident of Menlo Park: The Willows
on Mar 9, 2018 at 10:09 pm

@spare_us writes that Keith will go against the committee recommendation to push for a city-wide mayoral election.

Here in the Willows we know Keith and the rest of the council to be very reasonable, so we disagree. Still, it would be very entertaining for @spare_us the come before council, during public comment, to repeat some of this vitriol.

The best outcome for the residents and council will be to accept the committee recommendation, and then move ahead with a city charter that solely to address the election process. By 2020, the city could then move forward with from-district elections in all but District 1, returning most of the city to the system of government they want.

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